Forthe show’s return last week, Breaking Badcreator Vince Gilligan teased fans with flash forwards, suggesting a desolate future for Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and sending the blogosphere into waves of speculation: had the addled suburban meth cook faked his own death? Had he killed his wife, his infant baby, his DEA-inspector brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris)?

There will be fewer guessing games this week, as Gilligan picked up where we had been left hanging: Walt left Hank’s garage with a full Heisenberg face on, the alias adopted for his criminal alter-ego. Things moved quickly, pitting the Schraders against the Whites as the two sisters, Hank’s wife Marie (Betsy Brandt) and Skyler White (Anna Gunn), were torn apart in the wake of the policeman’s discovery.

But things also moved backwards. Gilligan rewarded Breaking Bad’s loyal followers by recreating scenes and characteristics we haven’t seen for seasons. Marie, dressed in darkest purple, returned to the manic kleptomania that divided her and Skyler in season one. Walt, once again, was found wheezing in the desert with a shovel. Later, we see him on a makeshift deathbed, as he becomes the cancer patient of season two, promising a sympathetic, if numb, Skyler that all his wrongdoing was for their family’s future alone.

Out in the desert, however, under meth-blue skies, the wheels of empire were turning. Lydia (Laura Fraser), head of an international distribution company, cut a ridiculous figure in red-soled Louboutins amongst the scrubland. She was here to address the falling quality of meth that Heisenberg has left behind. After grubbing around a filthy, dank little subterranean lab (leaving many, I imagine, with pangs of pride for Walt and Jesse’s meticulous practice), a takeover left Walt’s former assistant Todd (Jesse Plemons) back in the frame. Might Heisenberg return yet?

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Walt’s other protégé Jesse (Aaron Paul), viewed from above, was seen spinning endlessly on a squeaking children’s roundabout. After his crazed philanthropy around Albuquerque's poorest neighbourhoods landed him back in police custody, perhaps Hank will be the man to end Jesse’s silence.

Even in an episode as darkly Shakespearean as this, there was room for levity. Lawyer Saul’s henchman odd couple, the elephantine Huell (Lavell Crawford) and jittery Kuby (Bill Burr), find themselves reclining on the Whites’ car-sized stash of cash. “One word,” grunts Huell. “Mexico”. If only he knew what he would be getting himself into.